How do I read this book in public without looking like a pedophile?
Read the plain $10 penguin classic edition.
>>7966394
Most people will just think, "Wow! Look at this nerd, he's reading a book." Don't worry, anon. The world doesn't care about literature anymore.
>>7966394
Whoever uncultured enough not to have heard of Lolita needs to be slapped in the mouth.
I read it on my kindle on a family road trip popping boners the whole time
>>7966394
Kindle.
That, or grow a pair and realise everyone realises it's just a book.
>>7966394
most normies probably haven't even heard of it
be a woman
don't be ugly
The people who are even remotely interested in what hook a stranger is reading have probably read or at least heard about what Lolita is.
No one's going to judge you, don't be autistic.
>>7966777
This but downside is you'll look like you have daddy issues
>>7966394
Wow even /lit/ has bait
>>7966394
By concentrating on the book, and not on your sexual interest in children.
>>7966774
Because it's not published in multiple editions by major mainstream presses? Because it wasn't adapted into two films with popular actors? Because it doesn't get included on lists of important novels (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/23/100-best-novels-lolita-vladimir-nabokov-nymphet) or get user-contributed reveiews even on the "teen" section of a mainstream press Children's Books site (http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/mar/01/lolita-vladimir-nabokov-review)?
You need to get out more.
>>7966394
>reading the public
Might as well carve "LOOK AT ME I'M COOL" on your pimply forehead. Hate to break it to you, but no bookish qt is gonna break through the slack-jawed crowds and come talk to you. That's not how the real world works. You suck
>>7966859
>projecting
>>7966862
>conditioned funny response
>>7966774
>uses "normies" to denotate 'people who don't read books'
>>7966394
I've read it in public, on the beach.
I'm a pedo, btw.
>>7966859
Twf bookish qts don't side up to you and say hey there what are you reading handsome
>>7967037
>I'm a pedo, btw
Reading Lolita on easy mode
>>7967049
You got me.
>>7967072
Actually pretty sad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv1K9roa4cc
>>7966801
Basically this, OP.
>>7967129
lol
>>7966801
100%
I'm usually to focused on reading to give a fuck about whose passing by
Get a cover that's not a half nude little child or teen or on the nose representation of a sexual act or nude child or teen.
https://youtu.be/qVtwVcYbz7k
>>7966401
basically, if they look up long enough from their iphone6plusmegazord
they wont even read the title
>>7966859
I'm a security guard so I pretty much have to read in public unless I want to spend 8 hours straight doing nothing but staring at stagnant images on a camera.
>>7966394
torrent the epub/pdf and put it on an ereader
>>7966394
How do I read this book in public without looking like a murderer?
>>7966394
>>7968908
make a book jacket, problem solved
>>7968908
why does this cover get posted? is it even possible to find this edition?
It's not even a long book, just read it on a Saturday or something
>>7966394
I don't get it. What is the appeal of this book?
>>7966785
This. It would be a good idea to actually wear nice, fitted clothing and not graphic tees and basketball shorts when reading this. Actually, that's good advice for anything in life
>>7969232
Pedos jerk off to it and pretend it's art or something.
Thats not the only cover, genius. Had one in grd 10 that was just a close up of female lips. Girls actually thought I was sensitive, reading romance and shit.
>>7969256
I wish
There aren't any graphic scenes :'(
>>7969232
It takes something morally reprehensible and transforms it into art. The prose is beautiful, and almost distracting from the fact that the protagonist sexually abuses and manipulates a 12 year old girl. Combine this with a delusional and unreliable narrator, and you end up with a twisted portrait of a pedophile.
I think that it's appeal derives from the taboo nature of its subject matter, and from Nabokov's technical ability.
>>7969289
>morally reprehensible
not really
Listen to the Jermy Irons narrated audiobook on your phone/mp3 player. Nabokov's prose and Iron's voice compliment each other in this story.
>>7969289
>protagonist manipulates a 12 year old girl
>implying it isn't the other way around
>>7966830
I think you're underestimating the ignorance of a normie, Anon.
>>7969306
>>7969310
"At the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go."
"It had become gradually clear toy conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif."
She jumps into the arms of another Pedophile to escape Humbert, even if this was symbolic it still represents how their relationship was not how Humbert described and perceived it, at least until the end.
wear a choker
>>7969338
There was a very complex psychology with both Lolita and Humbert and to take the simplified opinion of "the pedo is always wrong" would not be doing the book justice.
>>7969338
Get your mind out of the gutter. Humbert represents Old Europe, and Lolita represents young America. The novel is a love poem to the USA.
>>7969351
Lolita initially had a crush on Humbert and some mixed affections for him, but to deny that Humbert was morally reprehensible and therefore not at fault for how he damaged Lolita also doesn't do the book any justice. Ultimately Humbert singled out the signs of love and completely ignored her sustained distress, all in order to fulfill his own pedophilic lust. I think Humbert loved Lolita, but it wasn't a healthy understanding sort of love, and as a completely developed adult he should have seen that Lolita barely tolerated the situation.
Men should be able to resist the intentional or unintentional temptations of little girls, and in that Humbert failed. Humbert and Lolita lack the same level of agency.
>>7969373
Lolita died from childbirth when she was 17. That's hardly a loving portrait, unless you can explain how its a positive symbol.
>>7968908
Lol
>>7969385
He had mixed feelings about Seppoland.
>>7969373
Nabokov himself said it doesn't "mean" shit, especially about Europe vs America. At most he said it's a love letter to the English language.
>>7969377
Humbert's temptation was portrayed not as lust but more as a prison, or a burden he couldn't escape.
He was put in a situation that was similar to "dead if you do dead if you don't". Not being with lolita pained him so much, and being with her he felt manipulated and betrayed.
In the end Humbert took the role of the manipulator and "evil" character but really he suffered nearly as much as lolita did in that relationship
People don't give a fuck about you or what you read.
I read it on the bus and no one has ever bat an eye
>>7966859
This op. I am a qt and every time that I see these guys reading, they are trying desperately to seek for some attention of someone and is just pathetic. Is fine if you don't want to lose time at your bus ride but get out of your mind a bit. No one cares and if they do it will be someone with really low self esteem and seeking for attention too.
be a chick
>>7969795
>hi guys im a gril btw
>>7969756
Same. Besides, people are by and large plebs no one who knows what Lolita is will think any less of you and everyone else will not care.
>>7969811
thanks for responding
>>7969828
np bby
u wnt som fuk ;)
>>7966394
Why is the Western world on such a pervasive (apparently) paedophile scare, so much that I've heard men being afraid of talking to kids they don't know in the park, or being disregarded as potential child carers, or afraid to be seen reading a classic of literature, as illustrated by this thread?
>>7967039
>tfw qt approaches and asks me, "is that book called I Am a Cat? That sounds right up my alley!" To which I respond, "yeah it's really great... it's from the perspective of a cat..."
>tfw she says nothing and walks away
>tfw I will never be right up her "alley"
I think I blew my one chance.
>>7970587
People have a frankly bizarre outrage over it for some reason. Like yeah I get that it usually leads to abuse but people treat it worse than mass murder for some reason. Even the biggest of edgelords here start crying at slightest mention of it.
>>7966394
You don't.
>>7967037
GTFO you degenerate.
>tfw loli looking chick did a report on this in highschool
>she defended the relationship as beautiful and romantic
>later she leans over a desk and I see her cute butt wearing pink and white panties with animal designs
>remember a year before wgen I made out with her
>should have tapped that
>even if she was pudgy and notits
>>7966394
Nobody ever said anything or to my knowledge looked at me funny while I was reading this on the train every day for however long it took me. I had the cover with the lips.
>>7966394
Jacket cover
>>7969309
And of course Irons played Humbert in Adrian Lyne's film adaptation.
>>7970662
>yfw she's now in a DD/LG relationship
>they roleplay as Humbert and Lo
>>7970662
>things that never happened
>>7966417
There's literally only one scene that's remotely pornographic, which is in his journal and not the narration, and they didn't even have sex. The time they did have sex, it was in summary.
>>7971299My wife looks like a loli (4'8 75lbs) and we did this once after shitposting on /lit/ together (which happens often) and then we grabbed the book and started reading out lines to each other. It was a really nice night desu.
>>7971960
pls continue
>>7966401
>mfw on the train reading shakespeare some nigga comes close to me "yo wat u readin som beethoven?"
kindle
>>7973315
fucking christ
>>7973731
>he doesn't read beethoven
lmao fucking pleb get off this board
>>7973833
http://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Letters-Dover-Books-Music/dp/0486227693
>>7966830
Just asked my normie if he knows who Lolita is. He just looked confused.
>>7973849
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>7973849
You have a normie?
you just dont ok
>>7968908
1) Flip to the end.
2) Repeat over and over in your best imitation of a normie voice (full volume): "Dostoyevsky has shown me the truth and the light. Strangling joggers for sexual pleasure is no match for the transcendental pleasures of adherence to the values of the Russian orthodox church."
3) Profit.
>>7969309
This. Even the intro gives me chills.
>>7969289
It also tests your bullshit detector to see if good prose can actually make people become swayed from obvious morally reprehensible actions. Humbert bullshits the reader at the beginning with an insane amount of sympathy and passion. He just so badly tried to have a normal life but can't because fucking young girls is his fetish, ahhhh but lolitaaaa
For instance, the couch scene is actually really fucked up. Humbert makes it out to be as if she came onto him, but during the scene he frames it like a movie (a farce), and -among other things- he CLAIMS that she never said or did anything to protest but LATER states that she got up to pick up the ringing phone that he had UNTIL THAT MOMENT not heard.
In other words, he basically semi-molests her and is so deluded by his lust that he doesn't even hear anything from her until the moment he's broken from his trance by the phone that SHE picks up.
There's even some overt instances where it shows how she's crying and abused. By the 2nd road trip the only reason she's more promiscuous is (like many abused children) they develop fucked up ideas of sexuality, and she wants to manipulate her way out of his control.
>>7971539
It was the descriptions of her that made me get hard af
>>7969232
Diction and prose, written beautifully yet sullied with the filth of abhorrent acts/perspective. In a way, it's genius to contradict the beauty of the writing with the pure cringe of reading the thoughts of a pedophile.
Nigga I read that shit in public with my wife's daughter splayed out across my lap.
I am 93 million miles from giving a fuck
>>7969289
>implying it isn't the 12 year old girl that manipulates and exploits her timid old lover
>>7969377
Lolita was depraved long before Humbert ever laid hands on her. Humbert actually kept her away from all the other vices she would have inevitably gotten herself into as a ribald girleen (alcohol, drugs, prostitution, pornography). As soon as she ran away from Humbert, she was subjected to all of that.
I remember a line like 'Lolita, I wanted to protect you from the horrible things that happen to little girls in dark alleys', etc
>>7970587
Hysteria over sexual exploitation of minors started in Britain in the Victorian age and spread into the US along with the fear of 'white slavery'. The Mann Act that Humbert bemoans in the book is another name for an actual federal law passed in 1910 to prevent the trafficking of women across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.
>>7974450
He was still a "horrible thing" for her. She would cry and was at times utterly despondent. He kept trying to coerce her with candy, and other things little girls like to keep her quiet. He manipulated her as only an adult can do to a child. Even if she came on to him at first (it's written from his point of view, and who knows how utterly skewed that is), he is still an adult and allowed himself to act on his depraved fetish for young females multiple times after the first sex act. If he wanted to protect her, he never would have fucked her in the first place.
>>7970603
what the fuck kind of answer was she expecting?
>>7973849
does your normie suck your dick?
>>7974469
He admits that what he did was morally reprehensible and a terrible idea (reader, my only regret is that I did not deposit the key to room --- at the desk and leave the state, the country, the hemisphere, the planet...) but he was always torn between his his awful desires and whatever was left of European moral decency. If there had been some way to satisfy the former without ruining Lolita's life, he would have gone with it. But after Lolita's mother was killed, the die was cast. He'd lived his whole life in the shadow of that encounter on the beach and here was destiny countenancing the most insane things imaginable for his sake. Whatever affection Lolita had for Humbert probably died with the news of her dead mother. From that point on it was a game of manipulation and treachery.
>>7974450
>Believing Humbert in this
So whodiedfirst, Humbert or Lolita?
Don't worry. You look like a pedophile without it.
>>7968246
normies don't look up from their cellphones.
Actually, nobody cares about you.
>>7974493
Humbert
>>7969795
"I am a qt"
You know the rule sweet stuff.
I read this on the bus in high school and got teased for it
i'm reading it at the moment - told my english teacher that and he told me when he read it he felt awkward in every page lmao
>>7974490
Yes; Humbert consistently claims it's "not my fault": she led him on, fate set him up, that early experience scarred him for life, etc. But again, this is HH speaking, so we're only getting his self-justificatory interpretation. If somebody says "I am a terrible person / did a terrible thing, but ... ," what follows the "but" is generally their attempt to evade responsibility.
Read mein kampf in public. Two people confronted me. One look at them was all I needed to explain how little of a fuck I gave. Indeed, not a fuck could be given from me, as I had naught. This is the way I treat the general public. My life is exquisite.
>>7969377
>healthy understanding sort of love,
tell us what that his and illustrate it with famous couples.
>>7970587
Because children are praised now. Why ? because women make fewer children. why? because they do not want the bad consequences of spreading their legs? why? because women want the pleasures without the effort, risk , danger and because men love to try to serve and please women.
>>7975285
How's 9th grade going?
>>7975348
If you love someone you do what's best for them. If being with someone hurts them, then you shouldn't be with them if you actually love them.
I can't think of any literature examples off the top of my head, but in Titanic, Jack let's go of Rose because he knows that clinging to her will only hurt her in the end.
>>7975374
9th grade? I'm a retired vet, engineer, father of 4, complete patriarch.
>insert copy pasta: What the fuck did you just say to me? I'm a decorated sniper....
>>7974469
>She would cry
lel no
women cry to ostracize somebody thanks to getting attention from the betas who will defend women as soon as they can.
>>7966394
Book jackets
>>7975386
role playing sure i s fun when you're a retarded faggot
merry christmas
>>7966394
I feel insulted when someone confuses Nabokov with his characters. Or calls him the godfather of American paedophilia. That's such a profoundly mistaken view of the writer. Remember this - Nabokov isn't speaking for himself when he describes the forbidden charms of a nymphet at such length. He speaks for himself when he describes in meagre terms, in the very merest hint, the impressive financial resources that allow Humbert to freewheel round America with Lolita. A writer's true heart speaks out very furtively.
For me Dolores Haze was a symbol of the soul, eternally young and pure, and Humbert Humbert was the metaphorical chairman of this world's board of directors.
Of course, what the writer was dreaming about wasn't a green young schoolgirl, but the modest financial security that would allow him to catch butterflies in peace somewhere in Switzerland. I see nothing shameful in such a dream for a Russian nobleman who has realized the vanity of the heroic feat of a human life. And the choice of subject for the book intended to provide that security offers less insight into the secret aspirations of his heart than what he thought about his new fellow-countrymen and just how indifferent he was to what they thought about him. And the fact that the book turned out to be a masterpiece isn't hard to explain either - talent is hard to conceal.
>>7976399
The author himself specifically said it wasn't an allegory
>>7966401
Correct. Read it at work when I had nothing to do. No one cared.
